Welcome to the In-Plant Insights Blog

• Blog Post
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• Howie Fenton
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• 17 August 2018

4 Benefits of Workflow Automation. Which is your Favorite?

Over the last few months, we have been focusing on possible reasons in-plants are reluctant to invest in workflow automation. We discussed workflow myths, building the business case and infrastructure, and executives jaded due to claims of increased productivity. There is another side to this

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• Blog Post
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• Elisha Kasinskas
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• 10 August 2018

Print 18 In-Plant Panelists Announced for Workflow Flossing Session

Announcing Panelists for "In-plant Panel: Workflow Flossing" Print 18 Session A perennial favorite, the in-plant panel seminar at Print 18 is back. This year the session is titled "In-Plant Panel: Workflow Flossing," and will be held on Sunday, September 30th in Chicago from 10-10:50 am. Register for session R3 or use code Save35RSA when registering

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• Blog Post
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• Howie Fenton
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• 17 July 2018

How Value-Based Pricing Helps In-plants Battle Threats

How Value-Based Pricing Helps In-plants Battle Threats Most in-plants use a cost-plus pricing strategy. In simple terms, you calculate the cost to manufacture and mark that cost up 5-20%. This works well unless equipment utilization falls and prices increase, or a super-efficient company is trying to get the business. In either case, commodity type products

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• Blog Post
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• Howie Fenton
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• 18 June 2018

The Real Reason Printing Companies are Reluctant to Invest in Workflow Automation

This is the third and final article in a series that attempts to answer the question of why companies are reluctant to invest in workflow automation software. In the first article, we dispelled five myths, and in the second we looked at research. In this article, we will try to identify the true underlying reason for the lack of investment.

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• Blog Post
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• Howie Fenton
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• 17 May 2018

Why Printers Don’t Invest in Workflow: Survey Says…

Why Printers Don't Invest in Workflow: Survey Says… This is the second article in a series of three that attempts to answer why companies are reluctant to invest in workflow automation software. In the first article, we dispelled five myths. We will focus on data in this article. According to the Idealliance "2017 Capital Investment

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• Blog Post
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• Howie Fenton
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• 15 April 2018

5 Reasons Printers Don’t Invest in Workflow Software

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• Blog Post
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• Howie Fenton
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• 19 March 2018

What You Don't Know about Costs Can Hurt You - Part 2

How long it should take to perform a task (create an estimate, enter orders, etc.) has always been a mystery because there is little to no comparable data. Recently however, Chris Bondy and Wesley Odell from the RIT School of Media Sciences published a report.

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• Blog Post
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• Elisha Kasinskas
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• 06 March 2018

Intermountain Healthcare Experiences Big Savings with Healthy Web to Print

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• Blog Post
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• Howie Fenton
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• 16 February 2018

What You Don’t Know About Costs Can Hurt You

This is the first in a two-article series about understanding and improving costs. In any business, some mistakes are costlier than others. In our opinion, some of the most dangerous mistakes for in-plant print centers are the ones that get back to the administration

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• Blog Post
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• Elisha Kasinskas
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• 02 February 2018

Webinar: Big Savings with Healthy Web to Print

Register now for the 2/27 In-plant Graphics webinar, "Big Savings with Healthy Web to Print." 2pm ET |11am PT. As part of a top-ranked ranked Healthcare Supply Chain organization, Intermountain Healthcare's Design and Print Center (DPC) adheres to high standards. While the supply chain center has been a model of efficiency and savings, the in-plant

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• Blog Post
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• Howie Fenton
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• 22 January 2018

Has Web to Print Become a Business-Critical Application?

Has Web to Print become a Business-Critical Application? The growing importance of e-commerce has never been more clear than the most recent holiday season as 51% of holiday shopping was expected online, compared to 42% in stores (Deloitte Holiday Retail Survey [2017]). An annual survey by analytic firm comScore and UPS found that consumers are

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• Blog Post
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• Pat McGrew
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• 20 December 2017

Three Workflow Resolutions you Must Make for 2018- RSA Q4 Tips

Build a Better In-plant Tips RSA offers a quarterly "Build a Better In-plant Tips newsletter," to email subscribers. By special request, we are offering our most recent issue as a blog post. To receive our quarterly tips to help you build a better in-plant, sign up today. This quarter, Keypoint Intelligence/  InfoTrends' Pat McGrew offers

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• Blog Post
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• Howie Fenton
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• 08 December 2017

5 Critical Success Factors for Success in 2018

5 Critical Success Factors for Success. The state of the in-plant industry is strong and those that focus on the new critical success factors (CSF) will likely continue to thrive. Among the CSF factors contributing to this healthy market are: A growing print market, Continuing efforts to automate production, Measuring and reporting improvements, Monitoring and

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• Blog Post
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• Howie Fenton
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• 17 November 2017

Operational Excellence is No Longer Optional

Operational Excellence is No Longer Optional One of the highlights from Print 17 were a number of excellent presentations by leading companies who have demonstrated operational excellence. One example was presented during the Print 17 Luncheon by the managers of the Blue Valley Schools' in-plant. In the presentation video, staff explain the benefits of...

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• Blog Post
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• Howie Fenton
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• 19 October 2017

Print 17 Message: Invest in Workflow. But, Most Don’t.

Idealliance Capital Investment Study Findings At Print 17, I had the chance to sit down with Andy Paparozzi, chief economist at Idealliance, and talked about the latest research on investment priorities. I had worked with Andy on the last Capital Investment study and was interested in learning about the latest study entitled "Capital Investment: Where

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• Blog Post
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• Elisha Kasinskas
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• 13 October 2017

How One In-plant Automates 86% of their Workflow and Saves Millions

In a recent presentation, Blue Valley Schools shared the story of how they'e been able to fully automate 86% of their orders and save their organization over $1.4 million in the last seven years. The case for automating workflows is compelling- touches have a high cost. The Keypoint Intelligence | InfoTrends 2017 study, “U.S. Production Software Investment Outlook” projects that 79% of print shop volume will be automated by 2019. How will you reach this level of automation?

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• Blog Post
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• Howie Fenton
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• 19 September 2017

Does a Shift in In-plant Business Models Mean More Financial Accountability?

In our last In-plant Insights blog post we talked about the different in-plant business models: fully funded, partially funded and partially charge-back, full cost recovery / break-even and revenue or profit-driven. During a recent webinar, we offered an observation about the changing business models which is represented by the blue arrows in the graphic. Although only observation, we believe that:

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• Press Release
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• Rochester Software Associates
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• 29 August 2017

RSA Demonstrates New Software Releases to Streamline Digital Workflow at Print 17

Rochester Software Associates (RSA), provider of production print workflow software solutions for in-plant and corporate print centers will be showcasing how to streamline digital production print workflow and offer a new technology demonstration of voice-enabled workflow in booth 231 at Print 17...

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• Blog Post
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• Elisha Kasinskas
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• 28 August 2017

Bold Moves for the Future Print 17 Panelist Closeup- The World Bank

This article is the final article in a series introducing each of the three in-plant panelists on the Print 17 panel that I'll be moderating September 11th titled "In-Plant Panel: Bold Moves for the Future." The session features in-plant leaders in Healthcare, Higher Education and non-profit.

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• Blog Post
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• Howie Fenton
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• 21 August 2017

3 Reasons Companies Consider Outsourcing In-Plant Print Centers

Few things strike fear in the hearts of in-plants more than the announcement that they are under review. The administration can call this many things, including: an analysis, review, comparison of performance, or evaluation of best practices. Whatever it is called, it means scrutiny. In some cases,

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